the TARDIS and the Bride
by peachyuu
Summary: series of oneshots involving the Doctor [ 9th / 11th included at times ] and Donna Noble. info per oneshot inside.
1. introductory author's comments

Hello there, and welcome to my second amalgamation of Doctor | Donna oneshots that I write and update most likely only sporadically. u vvvu ;

Why have two, you ask me?  
Well, the first was, as the title indicates, intended for everything I produced during NanoWrimo. Now that is [ long ] over, I figured it would be best to move further drabbles to another spot.

The focus of these oneshots will inevitably become Tenth and Donna, written platonically. I will, however, deviate from these themes and characters once in a while. Chapters will be tagged accordingly as:

[ **legend** ]  
[ 9 ]: chapter involves 9th instead of 1Oth.  
[ 11 ]: chapter involves 11th instead of 1Oth.  
[ r- ]: chapter involves romantic implications [ e.g. one of them mentally admitting a crush on the other ]  
[ r ]: chapter involves actual romance [ e.g. kissing ]

Combinations are also possible [ 11 / r ]. I know from experience I do admittedly write quite a bit of [ r ], but [ r+ ] is quite rare and there's a 99 percent chance I'll never write smut, so if that is what you're looking for - sorry, these won't be your fanfics, probably. ;

I forever appreciate concrit because I always hate what I write and how I write characters so helping me improve would please me a great deal. ; v;

And I believe this concludes the basics here, so if I haven't put you off yet, have fun reading, and enjoy, hopefully!


	2. (11) of Chronos and the stolen fire

Just like I managed to start out my NanoWrimo oneshots with Nine / Donna instead of Ten / Donna, here we've got a different Doctor, too - Eleventh / Donna, to be more exact.  
I could go into detail here why I think Donna would rather have died than lost her memories, but that takes a bit too long, so if you won't take my word for it, hit me up in a pm for an explanation or so. :B ;  
Also, this fic plays on the fact that the bird eating Prometheus' liver is sometimes named a hawk and sometimes a vulture ... and the title is a wordplay on him bringing the fire, but also on the fact the Ancient Greeks believed gingers had red hair because they stole from the hellfire. iknowi'mlame.

not proofread, so if you see any horrible errors, let me know!

* * *

**OF CHRONOS AND THE STOLEN FIRE**  
[_ eleventh / donna_ ]

* * *

She was the only and last thing he wanted to see – he was the last she ever would.

It's the most unbefitting graveyard, the most inappropriate funeral – the most important woman tucked into this dim and soggy alley he isn't even sure of anymore what it has been drenched with – or it would be, will be, if he fails to act quick, fails to act clever, fails to act _right_.  
He did that earlier, just the bit ago when he caught her in the middle of the alien invasion he had to stop and come crashing like his hearts did when she saw him, her mind half burnt and crumpling before the auto – lock kicked in so she didn't have to die – at least not that way.

But he'd stood still and watched as people ran past screaming and trampling and thinking her dead and not daring to check because they were selfish, selfish, like he had once been, with his view eagle wide across the Milkyway, talons and feathers often brushing and breaking that which did not have to in simple carelessness and vengeful hunger for Promotheus' liver, for punishment, because _something_ had to be.

He wonders if that was what happened – the bearer of fire, in her speech, in her hair, and him tearing it all out, day after day, not knowing better than to laugh and boom over her voiceless cries for aid amidst all that terror in the stars, accidentally, not desiring to harm her, but being too used to crooking cackling now to know it could break others: simple instinct, just reflex, to gouge and to eat, drink up her delight as that was all she'd clearly show him, ducking away from out of his gaze like so many he trashed involuntary did.

She did make him look down at them, just never at her when it hurt – and then Hercules never came.  
Maybe she thought that was him, soaring down, because he had pecked at her chains too when he came to free her from the Earth. Sole mistake she ever made.

He was now making one of many.

He had to brush and bound and push and crash to get her out, grimacing at effort and at her position ( bridal, bridal, met again and once more bridal ), and simply planned to hide her, away from it all, call her family ( because what would she be without her phone, aside from bridal ), but the safe place took a while and the rocking was too hard, not meant for keeping the newborn and blank slate asleep but for rousing it from its slumber.

And so she does.

She does, and they look, at one another, and he almost wants to yell his no before he realizes he now has a different face – she is safe, she can look at him, he can take his time now because she is not abruptly dying – and he just smiles, forehead wrinkled, soft and undulating, and he smiles, slightly hushing, and tells her it will be okay.

He is quickly frozen past the peak of Olympus where there are no Gods – for there are none – but only snow and ice and cold and impending death for those who look there for miracles and faith when she calls him Doctor.  
And he tries to take it as ' no I'm not I'm not a medic but I will get you one ' but he realizes it is not with his way of dress and his hair and his bowtie and the old eyes she's looking into and already identified as such when he came back for her, or she for him, whatever destiny made that to be.  
He's only gotten older since he lost her.  
She did, too.  
But she won't, not anymore, any longer, because she's conscious and struggling and burning and he can almost feel her temples throb when he holds out to touch again, just in time, right in time, or actually long too late because he should have saved her.

In a quivering grab, she blocks them.

And what comes out is a garbled mess of tears and words and groans and screaming that he does not know how to deal with except for try to stop again by shutting that door of him and her because it hurts too much, but he staggers underneath her incoherent begging to please not to, not again, not that life times three, like fairytales, the magic number, please make it one because indeed she does not know or not entirely but when the light seeps through the cracks and it always, always does ( starlight, moonlight, all the light he showed her ) the only thing she realizes is not that former brilliance but just how terribly sad she is now.

But I don't want to kill you, he says.

For a moment, she is clear and crying, and tells him it's just euthanasia.

And so he holds and lets her die, in a mercy murder he never thought he would perform and that she just apologizes for until she's burnt up all within like Pompeii and the Pyroviles for she wishes to be selfless like he taught her and simply heal like a Doctor and not hurt but her courage has ran out and she just can't.

And he thinks of how he scorched up all her insides and her fuels with killing twenty thousand and rebellions of slaves with too many deaths to count, her family choking on the toxic gas that he triggered much too early while she risked her life out on the enemy ship he'd thrown her on sans consent while sparing her not even half his time, less than the amount of time he had his daughter that she made him accept for the child to be just shot and then she lost _her_ children in the world that never was after the noble lady's son was murdered in one that was too clear, and he thinks of how he asked her comfort after people turned to monsters and did not give her just a wink of it himself – for he thinks of how she's selfless, and she's dead, and he is the great vulture that ate her inside – out.


	3. Milkyway Matrimony

Felt like I couldn't leave this posted around without some actual Ten / Donna, so heeere we go. I've been meaning to do this tumblr promptset [ post/36511456720/genimhaled-using-the-prompts-below-write-a ] particular drabble challenge for a while now, and I've had the idea of linking the TARDIS description by the end of season 5 and Donna's first appearance as a bride for a while as well [ as the overarching title indicates ]. Not my best, but, eh, at least this oneshot - cluster partially meets its own description now, ahaha. ;  
Enjoy, hopefully!

* * *

**MILKYWAY MATRIMONY**  
[ _tenth, mentions of rose, martha, and donna_ ]

* * *

It's old and it's new, it's borrowed and blue, just like he is, man after man with face ever changing and the years just piling up, appearances stacking like secondhand passports and matching surgery to steal the life of someone else because yours isn't worth much out in the foreign and the alien, or perhaps it isn't to the law that made you so hardened and bruised and battered, the long arm you're running running running from and _with_ in a box that's actually theirs.

It's why he can't settle down and have that one life – he can't provide safety, not now and not ever, no matter how many men he becomes unless he takes all those years and changes what he is at core so he can learn to walk and pace and toddle and hold hands, whole hands around the hands of the little ones he once had and that have now made him lost as they are, beyond the realms of time and space.

It's what he thinks the endless galaxies he's caught in try to arrange sometimes, not for them to meet again, but for someone new who might provide though she won't ever, like the skies are the father and he's the child that needs to join hands because he's the last and the river between the two Asian – told lovers needs to spread its branches even further in the universe and not stop with him.

It's something he would not mind if his widespread sparkling parent would not be cursed with the gift of weaving neverlasting bonds, where the first was abruptly ceased young romance that could have lasted so much more and the second only left the bitter aftertaste of bad break – ups and divorce.

It's this he ponders, the lonely and doomed groom, in his suit with his tie and his hair combed back today - and then he smiles and pulls to ring their church with the wheezing sound of an ancient dusty organ brought to use, with at his side the woman who already promised him forever just by showing as a bride.


	4. Ptolemy

I just had a bunch of tests on history, mythology and literature ... so I suppose that is why this happened. I'm not even sure it makes any sense other than being random angst again ( it's just something I naturally write, I fear ), but at least I wrote ... something? ;  
something. yeah.

* * *

**PTOLEMY**  
[ _tenrose_ | _donna_ ]

* * *

She'd never even told him.

Her galaxy was heliocentric, spinning in soft, small, slow circles, the light of their life or lack there of amidst all potential suitors, turning just their heads – what more was there to them – to look and then wink away again abashed, the last glimpse before night took always that single lick of fire from their far – off love they could not inch any closer to. He danced among them, though they were boring, forever only captivated by that one blazing woman they twirled 'round and 'round in a waltz where they'd not touch her, and he wondered which he was, mirrored in his golden – crowned queen he was obsessed with but could never reach again.  
" Mars, " He says to her one day ( not the one who is his Sol ), his thoughts upon mythology and symbols where he has no reservations kissing she who's someone else's, the Lame, the Smith, the Useless, if she is the light – haired goddess who captivates him so.  
" You a warrior, then? " The other says, head down and unconvinced like a martyr upon scaffold. " I thought you were a healer. "  
He sees his world view crumble, and then calls her Copernicus, nettled, somewhat deigning, for the image of his love as Aphrodite is fixed like 72 Pompeii, and he will not orbit without her.  
So he makes himself Asclepius and pope within the 13th century where her astronomy must bend for his religion of the heathen Queen, imported from the Ancient Greeks in place of where his God should be. And at night he lays and dreams in threefold, of where he passes judgment and they are reunited, where he is not her son and she hasn't been alone though he hasn't touched her, where she welcomes him with child and they are the trinity, immaculate, where his child does indeed resemble him.  
" You don't think that's weird tho? " She asks him, now a cynic even past the Renaissance when he tries to talk her of immaculate conception. " Would make right more sense if they stained a mom that was her surrogate. "  
And she drags Merlin to the modern age where he no longer predicts dragons but seethes like one himself, fuming of his unfound wife like the huffy blue – clad wizard Disney makes him out to be. He has lost his sun and stomps instead of tangos, chasing his own tail and hide in the convulsion of his whirring thoughts, and then calls her pagan with no sanctity - for he is Abram with no Hagar that had to sacrifice his child and then beyond for there were more, that it makes him Philemon who curls around his Baucis with no space between for middle – eastern whores of harems and her progressive technologic nature which fails to understand the joy of carrying love's children.

" They didn't have a stammer, " She answers from the grave he dug her heart into, the last glimpse she gives before the dark falls and she smothers in the earth of the geocentric system he created to have the universe revolve around his wishes.


	5. Star Flowers

I found quite a nice flower meaning prompt list on Tumblr just now, and while multiple appealed to me, I decided to go with milkvetch, " your presence softens my pains " . I think it very well sums up the relationship between the Doctor and his companions, plus there is the added bonus of ' astra ' ( astragalus being the latin name for the milkvetch family ) meaning ' star ' , of all things.  
we'rejustgonnaignorethegaluspar t.

* * *

**STAR FLOWERS**

* * *

" Where are we going then? " She says.  
" I've got no idea. "

She reminds him of a desert milkvetch, amidst the dust and ash, purple gown that she had borrowed whipped about in the harsh wind and foul growl from the blazing mountain. She shakes, she coughs and cries, limbs bunched in like a gathering of flowers, and he realizes the great irony in the thought and the comfort she must be offered later.  
But there is none to be given afterwards.  
She curls in like her own petals, after she had him congregate their hosts within the box like a little trembling flowers cluster. They leave them, her, plucked of company, but astragalus takes back up to the heaven, though sprouting from the sand.  
Out in the stretching fields, however, it's an unearthly blue, open – spaced and lonely, stem still growing high and tall, in a cry for love towards the skies. He isn't over six foot tall to touch the stars and moons, but became a scanning, lighting beacon, drawing travelers near.  
A lighthouse is so lonely upon its solitary rock.  
She says he is too skinny and just a match at most. _Am I_, he asks her, amongst the whirring of the engines like a wildfire in his plains. _Am I, to you?_  
He sees her take the hidden meaning of the bouquet he's constructing – _to him, she does, it's why she's here, she does_ – and then hesitate, like blooming before sunrise.  
She then shakes her hair out to announce the dawn, never simply leaving him in the dark of a collapsing universe, and tells him that he is, that peculiar head of brown, and that they maybe are, in some ways, and it's the reason she's still here.  
Starflowers soothe his soul.

" Where are we going then? " She says.  
" Where – ever you might want to. "


	6. ( r ) Now and Then

Oops, been quite a bit since I uploaded a drabble.  
I'm not sure if this goes under T or under M. Yes, there is sex, but more a passing mention than outright smut - it's not like I just wrote up a lemon [ yes, I just used that word, way old - fashioned ].

Anyway, I'm normally not much of a fan for writing physical intimacy, but I did this for an actual reason, one inspired by the fact there seem to be 3 general ways, in fics, for the Doctor and Donna to hook up:  
**O1** ), they actually get romantically involved  
( very much to my liking - if it weren't for the s4 finale, because it means he'd drop her like a brick in favor of Rose while she has to watch on )  
**O2** ) very angsty ( possibly ) drunken crying one night stand with generally lots of shame and awkwardness after  
**O3** ) sporadic friends with benefits one - night shags with no underlying feelings  
( absolutely _not_ to my liking )

So, this is an attempt at finding middle ground: how they could have been somehow romantically involved, still, realistically / plausibly to the best of my ideas / abilities.

* * *

**NOW AND THEN**  
[ _tendonna, mentions of tenrose_ ]

* * *

It just happens every now and then, when the day's been hard and the night comes to soften their pain, their walls, and all their reservations.

" Doctor. "  
She's in that thick white housecoat and a messily clipped pin, and she watches him a little leadenly with her shoulder to the doorway and her small eyes half hooded.  
He tinkers for a moment, buttons, panels, levers, composing his always initially rising anxiety, and then he looks up, chin far tilted back.  
She simply nudges off, backwards, bottom lip half furling away, and then she disappears.  
He, again, returns to the controls, lamely, with one hand, sniffing softly, until the quiet clap of her bare feet to the hallway floors is nearly out of his sensitive hearing range – and then he follows, towards the sound of clattering water.

Because he's late, she's already in, arms across the rim of the tub and the chin of her lolling head upon them. She regards him in short hummingbird flutters, casts her gaze down, and then looks up directly, voice a thin mutter in unease of her tenderly meant proposal. " You can get in. I mean, if you want to. "

He hesitates. He knows what she's not asking for – she is, instead, offering him the comfort of a warm and bubbling foamy bath and the familiarity of her presence he can allow himself to relax and be true in, knowing that he'll be either way unveiled whether he tries to speak in lies or honesty. What he is afraid of is himself when faced with still – dry shoulders and the inevitability of touching knees, because that is not why she has called him here.  
But he gives in. He gives in by unbuttoning the jacket, and, as soon as he does, she turns, eyes shut. He was not to come in to watch her bare herself before him, and she is not in for the show of his derobing. It's an odd, unspoken agreement, considering their upcoming mutual state within the dip, but it's not about them flashing skin, about cojoining, about erotica and cheap invitations to such plots – it's simply about together and _rest yourself with me_ and though they are both aware of this, it's easier to retain state without any wrong signals where they can be avoided.

The temperature he enters is much too high for his internal, so he groans and narrows his face at her, but she has her nose but not attention away from him and he can see the knowing, cheeky smile wisp past. He tucks himself in fully, still, or to the waist, at least, determined to be brave and not giving in to her body's preferences of cold and heat.  
She shifts. She rolls the bones of her bust up among the soap into deep clavicles and stretched muscles of her neck, and then she sways in the water, both learningly and expertly, and settles her back against his chest, canted forehead to his jawline.  
When she wriggles tads too much to find the absolute correction position, he grinds his jaw forward in a quiet growl. " _Donna_. "  
She snickers at all his corporal reactions. " _Sorry_, Spaceman. "  
It's completely unapologetic and mostly humored, so he finds her hands in the invisible transparency below the white surface she and the tap whipped up, and he sighs heavily into her fringe with fingers tangled.

They sit like this. They breathe and unwind and almost sleep against one another until the mold of their bodies triggers no more reaction in their constructed unity where there slowly seems to be no more seam between the two.  
She breaks it. She stretches ( he along with her, in reflex, for he keeps trying to fit together ) and she reaches up, around his nape, to the back of her head, and then she takes the clip out.  
His gaze is rimmed with black and the flecking of confused stars as he strains it down the best he can because, yes, he does mourn the temporary loss of collarbone under the falling curtain, but it drapes about and tickles him, lithely, dancingly, untouched, as she rolls her cheek upon his shoulder.  
" … Do you want to wash my hair? When we get out? "  
He is the breathless cyclist, windblown, upper facial features opening up so wide there's no further indication needed that this should not be even be _question_. She, who prims and sprays and cares and curls, and he who may then touch, be part of that routine, entrusted with its very basics and foundation -

It says so much he cannot simply take it.

He has to crane and twist to not unpiece them any further, but he manages, drying his palms upon her cheek and the highest end of her sternum. It was no such invitation, but she still unshakingly accepts the unexpected guest upon her mouth, the answer to his bell favorable through the door softly opening. There is nothing to be seen underwater, still, the slight stir only foaming up the visibility even further, but there is to be felt, and their low – kept sounds bound and flutter about the marble white like engaging butterflies. He satisfies her, himself moreso, in three equally divided parts of manual, inside, and gentle splash of her back curling and sliding along his chest.  
It exactly what he feared he would do and at the same time everything he hoped for now that she, as always, welcomes him completely, and speaks not a single negative in voice, in body, or in eyes.

They last, for a little while, and then drain the water to turn on new, obscuring themselves underneath the shower with a wide pull of the curtain. She keeps her promise, wets her hair, and then raises her arms around him in what, in the outside world, would become their usual tight hug. Now, she brings her face closer, and so does he, elbows against her scapula, bodies pressed platonically, and ( he counts ), one, two, three, four, five double hands of shampoo that he kneads and twists and feebly rubs in. Duos only follow when the former has been washed out entirely, dripping about their feet and along their faces, lips so tightly connected the froth is only allowed past, finding no way to leave ill tastes on their tongues.

And when it's all done, it's over, and he leaves, without a word.  
She stays, and she washes, inside – out, though knowing that it will undoubtedly happen again as it has before and will continue to do so. There is not one using the other – it's simple, actual love between two completely consenting adults, one that stretches beyond these moments but they the cannot allow to show or even be there then. There's no place for this sort of DoctorDonna out in the bared open, where he struggles with ' but I love Rose much more ' and she knows ' he doesn't love me quite that much then ' .  
Not quite that much. Not then. But he does, and she does, and they do, and so it occurs.

They do not speak of it again next morning, like they always do.


	7. The time at which it snowed

Much to my [ dis ]pleasure, I only got one request for a Ten and Donna fic today while I was accepting prompts, this one being them reflecting on an event from the past. I was happy with the minimal amount because it's good to write outside of your comfort zone. I was sad simply because I like writing these two the very, VERY best.  
Hope you'll like this, too!

* * *

**THE TIME AT WHICH IT SNOWED**  
[_ tenth_ | _donna _]

* * *

" You're so scary. "  
They've backed far into the TARDIS, away from all today's fright, and he feels his left hard still in greater chilling horror than he has experience throughout their whole desperate ordeal. His right one, however, slings into his throat and down again ( down, down – all the way down ) in slow leaps that gurglingly sag it through his stomach, his guts, to pound lifelessly upon ground only to be thinly, shiveringly strung up again for another high, nauseating toss so it lumps into his windpipe before it scrapingly tumbles yet again and he, hesitantly, breathes.  
" … Donna? "  
" You're so scary. "  
Her upper arm is gashed towards her torso, a sliver of her skin – set clavicle exposed before the disinfectant and the cotton pads and all the bandages, and she has her head low so he thinks he to be looking at the folded hands within her lap but he can't quite tell because there's that damn fringe she's curtaining herself with, fencing, enclosing, walling herself in and protecting herself — and all of him aside his hanging mouth and wide eyes crawls in the unconfirmed realization that – oh God – maybe the threat she guardingly draws her good shoulder up against is _him._  
" I'm — " He tries, but he doesn't manage more.  
It elicits response from her, still. She draws the veil and her head back in a loll towards her nape that has her hair fall and flag about, and as she rolls her eyes off – straight off, not a moment where they meet his figure – he believes to see a trail of tears within the sharp, rounded yellow of the room.  
" You're terrifying, " She elaborates, strained and hoarse and unusually low for a Donna Noble unless said roar – voiced stomping hurricane is hurt, and, though he hopes it is, he knows it's not the wounds this time.  
His gait forward is more of childish, hesitant stumble, and he bends, knees upon the grated iron, bows his head, tries to meet hands, raises chin and drops his arms because he's not quite deserving right now of physical contact he seeks for his own comfort. " … I'm so sorry. "  
He knows what she means. She was wounded – he _let her_ get wounded – and he was enraged and tore the skies down to crash the world upon the unapologetic offender in a titanic storm for nobody touched Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, or Donna Noble – and if it could not be helped, then it had to be _avenged_.  
" _No_. "  
It is all the height a gentle yelling call can reach within a strangled voice, but it draws his attention, formerly vacant, now confused, and he comes to notice she's finally tête – à – tête with him, straightly so, gazes aligned, and he even more puzzled when he fails to read her. " … What? " He, too, is in shortage of air.  
She claps her mouth open and shut, a few times, fruitlessly formulating and ending with just goldfish stammers as her eyes wander about again in search for the help she needs – and then she drops, and droops, into her chair, and slides her palms upon her knees so her fingers are easier for his to reach. " I thought you'd hurt me. Maybe. In the end. Like _Lance_. And I was scared. I was so scared. Not just by circumstances. Not just by things you _did_. By _you_. Even – even though you protected me – by you. "  
There is nothing more he wants to do than deflect her, reassure her, for – oh Donna I'm so sorry I have frightened you but I would never ever ever in my whole life no no no _Donna_ – but she continues before he even can, her sniff a halfhearted snort but exactly derisive.  
" … And I was so _stupid_. I was so stupid, to think that, even _back then_ — "  
Back then? Wait, no now – with Lance – but - ?  
" – 'cos you got close and secure and I'd just learned that men who did so'd only hurt but you didn't and you wouldn't and you never have so I don't even know _why_— ! "  
She slides to meet him on the floor and he raises to meet her in the stool and there's a clunk to his torn shoulder ( a little price to pay for the saving of a life ) that has him cringe before she sets her head against the other and the last thing he catches before he delves his senses into her hair and gathers his arms around her back is the tight roll of her spine underneath his hands that, other than the clutch at his suit, indicate there is a sob flooding.  
" It's so _good_here – it's so _good_— ! … "


End file.
